| The Project |
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The Project currently envisioned by the ACAM Council and the Board of Directors consists of the following:  To provide a modest salary to twelve midwives that will allow them to staff the center , coordinate trainings, oversee activities, develop systems, and engage in community education and outreach.
To conduct intense educational training with the 40 midwife members of ACAM, in identifying and responding to the major killers of pregnant women—, hemorrhage, infection, pre-eclampsia.
To catalog traditional medicinal plants and develop a systems for collection and storage as well as safe usage.
To conduct midwife trainings on a regular basis on resuscitation of newborns and other emergency procedures as well as preventative care.
To develop the ACAM Center as a mid-level resource for women with pregnancy risk factors who cannot or will not go to the hospital.
To furnish a lab and arrange for training of a community member as a lab technician.
To provide a salary to the technician until lab use pays this.
To develop a system where all pregnant women cared for by midwives in the community will have at least one prenatal visit at the ACAM center for basic evaluation and lab work.
To equip a dental room at the ACAM Center and develop a dental program for pregnant women and children.
To develop a food pantry for malnourished pregnant women and their children.
To purchase solar panels and batteries and logistical support for developing a back-up energy source for running computers, refrigerator in lab, lights and hot water.
To broaden the primary health care skills of the midwives working in the center, integrating allopathic and traditional medicine and healing practices, so they might work more effectively in the community.
To conduct workshops on nutrition, environmental health issues, literacy, and health promotion in the community.
To provide scholarship funds that will allow young women to pursue midwifery as a vocation, thus assuring the continuation of the knowledge, wisdom, and experience held by Maya midwives as well as providing a consistent medical curriculum.
To offer stipends to midwifery students during their training in return for a commitment to work for ACAM for a period of time.
To develop a long range ACAM Program where Maya midwives will eventually be able to work with adequate compensation for their labor.
To develop a truly indigenous apprenticeship model of midwifery education that could accommodate 2-4 students a year.
To coordinate donation of used medical equipment and supplies available through IMEC with the needs of the hospital in Quetzaltenango which is poorly equipped. The objective is to develop a better relationship between the midwives and hospital professionals so that there will be better access for emergencies, improved continuity of care and recognition of the midwives as skilled practitioners who provide culturally appropriate health care in the languages of their communities.
To share the model of care that is developed with midwives in other communities.
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